Becoming Fearless: The Switch

Creating the Switch

Nobody can be fearless 100% of the time. Fear is a very useful emotion. It has ensured our survival as a species by not letting us make errors that would’ve ended our lives. The problem with today is that the danger that fear is supposed to protect us from is no longer as valid as it once was. So the fear reacts to anything that we perceive as a threat. In today’s world, this translates to anything that makes us uncomfortable.

We have to recognize the moment in which fear is preventing us from moving forward and be able to turn off this fear. You see fear is the barrier between feeling comfortable and feeling uncomfortable in any situation. The anticipation of how uncomfortable the moment will feel is what generates the fear. Because fear by its very nature is anticipatory.

The goal is to develop a system to become self-aware of what is actually happening in your mind and then train your mind to react a certain way. The brain like the body is a biologic machine. A machine that is constantly programmed with or without our consent. What we want to do is to train the mind to use fear as a trigger not an obstacle to obtain the things we want out of life.

Self-Awareness to See the Triggers

What exactly does it mean to be self-aware. Self-awareness is a tricky topic. It is something that is 100% in the eye of the beholder. Nobody can tell you that you have become self-aware, it is something that is inherent to the moment and to you. Becoming aware can be best described as a shift in focus from your internal world to the external one. Paying attention to the details of all the things around you and your relationship to them is a practical way to develop self-awareness.

How do we identify triggers and associate the right meanings to them. Our body reacts to the interpretation that the mind places on things outside ourselves. Such as it will associate a dangerous meaning to tiger tracks in mud. But it will associate a benign meaning to deer tracks in the same mud. The chemical reactions that happen when we associate dangerous meaning to things is what we eventually call fear. Fear feels the same regardless of different types of events that may trigger it. This means we can use that feeling as an indicator of something that we should do, instead of something we should run from.

Controlling the process of being self-aware enough to set appropriate triggers is a mental feat. It will initially take willpower and a shift in mindset to set the conditions of not only becoming self-aware enough to act appropriately, but also to recognize the actions that need to be taken when the emotion of fear is present. This all happens in your own mind. At the end of the day you are the one responsible for controlling your own mind. While this knowledge will not make the process any easier, at the very least you are aware enough that it is a process.

We must practice the art of self-awareness to gain control over our lives. So how do we practice? The same way that we would practice any skill we want to develop. We learn specific actions we must take, and we repeat them until it’s ingrained in our bones.

Here are a couple exercises to help you gain control of your self-awareness:

• Focus on the air coming in and out of your nostrils. The fact that you don’t normally do this is the reason why you should.
• Take something you would normally do and attempt to do it for an hour but without any sound.
• Train your senses to notice all the details of everything around you that you normally don’t notice because you’re stuck in your own head.

Conditioning the Reaction 

In the beginning it will be hard to control your reactions. Our minds are conditioned to react a very particular way to fear. The chemical reactions affect the strongest hormones in our body and can be very overwhelming. Additionally, most of the time we are not aware enough to even know what is happening. The trick will be to slow everything down to allow you a split-second to interject conscious will into a subconscious process.

Repetition of core exercises to train your mind and body to act in accordance with your will is key. The self-awareness exercises stated above and any other type of exercise that shifts your awareness to the external world is useful.  Repetition should be done at set times in the day to allow for routine to take over, and at variable times to train your mind to react to things as they unfold. The mistake that most people make is not being consistent with the training. It must be done every day, all the time.

In the time of crisis we fall back to our highest level of training not our highest level of potential. Fear itself is stimulated as a precursor or during a crisis. This means that we lose much of our mental faculty to the rush of chemicals that flood our body to ensure its survival. But what we do have available during this time is anything that has become routine and subconscious. This is why soldiers in the field fall back to the highest level of training not to the highest level of potential to win in combat. And dealing with your fear, is combat.

The ultimate goal is to have an unconscious reaction that drives positive impacts in your life. So if we have trained and conditioned our mind appropriately over time, then our reactions become unconscious. Truth be told all reactions currently are unconscious. The difference is that our current reactions do not produce the results we want in life. How awesome would it be if that every time we felt fear we deliberately pushed through to the other side instead of running away.

Breathing is Control

We don’t have to control our breathing, but we can. Our breath is one of the most unique features of our biological machine. It works when we’re not paying attention to it, and when we do pay attention we have the ability to control it. It’s one of the very few systems of the body that allows us conscious control at will. The connection between breath and mind runs so deep that our emotional states affect our breathing patterns. What is less commonly known is that our breathing patterns can affect our emotional states.

Breathing allows us to feel our emotional state. When we are in an excited state, our breath is shallow and rapid. When we are in a deep relaxed state, our breath is long and deep. As part of our self awareness training this becomes an indicator and possibly even a trigger for a desired action, as stated before. Not only can the awareness for breathing patterns help us, and also allow us to shift the breathing to a more desired state. When we are caught in an excited pattern, we can use that as a trigger to slow down the breath and allow us to gain more awareness of the moment.

Breathing allows us to control our focus and shift to become self-aware. This shift combined with slowing of the breath provides the basis of control during a crisis. Every deliberate act we do reinforces our self control, activates our self-awareness, and empowers us to make the right decisions.

Breathing allows you to control yourself as you pass through the fear. You see, when we begin in a comfortable state and we feel that we are being pushed into an uncomfortable environment. We sense a threat and that threat is the trigger for the fear. Fear itself is like a warning. It is only useful up to the moment in which the action of the thing you’re afraid of is done. Because once that action is complete, the reason for the fear dissipates. It is like a force pushing you not to do that one action needed. Now that you are in full control of your moment, you can choose to ignore the fear and breathe through that moment as the action is being done.

Coming Through the Other Side

All of your dreams are on the other side of fear. If you’re content then you do not have any fear. Fear is only activated when you’re not content where you are and you want to move to a place that is unknown. That unknown place is uncomfortable, new, uncertain, and the only place you have a chance at becoming coming more than what you are now. Fear only exists prior to the action that is feared.

Fear does not exist on the other side. Once the action is started, fear no longer has a place or meaning. It is proven to the mind at that time that there is not a threat and focuses on the task at hand. An example is preparing for a public speaking event in front of hundreds of people. Public speaking is one of the number one fears that people have. All the time spent prior to the event preparing for the speech there can be a lot of anxiety and fear. Even up to the moment as the words begin to flow, the fear can still be present. But once most people are halfway done with their speech the fear completely dissipates. Because the act in which they were afraid of is almost done.

Becoming comfortable in the uncomfortable is a success key. To be clear, once you are in the uncomfortable space it is no longer uncomfortable. You have to get comfortable being afraid and moving through the fear to the action that is feared. You must be comfortable with that process. 

Think of an action that scares you. That is the first indicator that by doing it you will grow. All the anxiety felt as you move towards taking that action is the trigger needed to flip the switch and turn off the fear. Once that is done, you have to move fast to the action that scares you. The faster you get it done, the sooner you will realize that you were only afraid of what you did not know.

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